Help! What should I do now? XPS M1530 board replaced

Dell has replaced,at NO charge, the motherboard and RAM of my Dell XPS M1530 that had died recently.

Should I keep this laptop or sell it and replace with another one?

I was thinking of asking Dell if the motherboard they had replaced with has Nvidia GPU. If it does then there is no point in keeping this laptop with Nvidia GPU issues. However, if the motherboard does not have Nvidia GPU then what should I do? Can I continue to use it and not face the Nvidia issues anymore?

This laptop is mostly used for personal work, web browsing (via VM only) etc. No gaming...

Also, what other questions should I ask Dell? any warranty extension etc on motherboard?

Purchased laptop in June 2008 with only 1 year warranty, did not get any extended warranty. Did not have any problems till May this year. Dell asked me to ship the laptop to their depot. They sent me prepaid box. Now they tell me that motherboard and ram have been replaced. Should I have asked for partial refund i.e. some cash back or should I have asked for ccredit towards a new laptop?

 

I am very interested in this thread, since my Dell XPS M1530 died two weeks ago. The problem is with the GPU, everything else still works fine.

You said you didn't get any extended warranty, but Dell still agreed to replace the motherboard? How did you do that? I wouldn't be so interested in a replacement since I am now thinking of buying a new computer (probably XPS15), so a refund would be nice...

 

There is no M1530 without an Nvidia GPU.

If you just got your board replaced, you should definitely sell the machine and get a new machine, regardless of what you are doing with it.

I'm pretty sure Dell offered to replace the board out of warranty due to the Nvidia settlement, but I thought that only went for one year out of warranty, so I'm not sure of the specifics on that or on the warranty extension.

 

Dell replaced, I'm yet to receive the laptop, m/board, ram and palmrest. If all m/boards have Nvidia (I thought some had Intel) then what is the point in replacing one bad board with another that can go bad anytime? How are people accepting this replacement?

 

The point is, there is no other choice but to buy out the laptop. Remember Nvidia NEVER officially claimed the chips were faulty, they just had a settlement, that is not an admission of guilt. As far as they know, it is just a high failure rate chip, but trust me all the chips are bad.

If you happen to get 3-4 repairs, Dell will contact you about a replacement computer.

 

If you look at my original post, you'll see that Dell replacing my board now was itself a big surprise. I doubt if they will replace the board again.

Just received my laptop. Seems the fan is on continuously at 50% speed (3080 rpm).

 

If it work, sell it ASAP.

Also alot of OEMs under the advice of Nvidia, was to write a BIOS that instructs the fan to go near full blast 24/7 to prolong the chip until your fan fails.

 

I'm posting this info in case you decide or have to keep the laptop and want to make the most of it.

I use a XPS M1530 which had it's mobo replaced about 1 year ago. The first gpu lasted for 3 years if i remember correctly. Both then and now the machine was used for more than 8 hours a day, but i only used the laptop myself after the first gpu died.

In order to prolongue the GPU life you should take some simple measures to improve the thermals of the laptop. In my case this included:

1. change the thermal compund on CPU and GPU to improve heat transfer.
2. undervolt the CPU to minimize heat generation under load. CPU and GPU share the same cooling heatpipe, so a cooler cpu implies a cooler gpu.
3. whenever possible, limit the fps while playing games (or other gpu intensive apps): for example, while i was playing WoW i used a 30 fps limit. This eased the strain on the GPU so much that the fan only had to ramp up to half it's max speed.

If used with proper care the M1530 should last 3-5 years with a new mobo, but the GPU will eventualy die. Carpe diem!

I won't go into details, but in the case of the M1530 the fans blowing at 50% minimum will not help much to prolongue the laptop's life. My fan behaves like it should, it even turns itself off if the laptop is cool enough. I have the latest (A12) bios revision, so the GPU driver/firmware is probably the culprit.

Update the graphics driver with the latest from Nvidia (not the one from dell), and see if issue persists.

 

But if the fan remains on constantly then does it not affect its life. Perhaps the fan will die sooner and cause m/board to fail as a result..

 

The fan is quite resilient and will likely outlast the gpu even if forced to run constantly (at low speeds).

 

I've sent Dell an email asking them what are my options if the laptop dies again due to m/board issue. Let's see what they say.

I am thinking of keeping the laptop for sometime as it postpones the day when I will have to spend time and effort to install s/w, remove all junk that come pre-loaded, move all data and configure the machine etc. etc. Of course, being that the board has this inherent flaw, it is only a matter of time.

Even if I sell the laptop now, I'd hardly get more than $300 for it. Once it goes dead forever, I can always part out the remains and still be able to get around $200-$250.

What do you guys think?

 

Read this.

You said this laptop was bought in 2008, therefore I honestly doubt you'll get any support from Dell beyond 2013. I also doubt you'll receive any clear answer from Dell on this matter.

The only good news i have for you is you should expect this laptop to last at least until late 2015.

If my prediction about Dell's answer is true, then my best advice is to choose a course of action immediately after: sell it asap or continue to use it while taking some precautions (described earlier). Either way the damage control will be better than just passively waiting for the GPU to fail again. I wouldn't rely on Dell to sort this one out for you. Their hands are tied on this matter, just like any other big player like HP or Apple.

Good luck and hope you somehow negotiate your way to a replacement. Would be a nice turn of events, and i certainly wouldn't mind being wrong on this matter.

 

Got a reply from Dell via email.

P/N that the replacement m/board (refurbished) is F125F. Comes with 90-day warranty only for video card issue. Email states that even though the board comes with Nvidia chip it is from a batch that is not affected (hahahaha...).

Probably I should ask the rep to look at their own site and see how many people had to replace their boards multiple times.

 

As far as any OEM is concerned, the M1530 is a problem model but no "known" defect as Nvidia never admitted fault to the Nvidia chips, hence the 400 million dollar settlement (which btw is NOTHING if you think GeForce 6-8 were all bad). My advise, sell it ASAP and buy a new laptop.